To some it is a force for good that has revolutionised British sport. For others, it signifies everything wrong with it in all its overhyped, overpaid glory. And to its rivals it is a behemoth that strangles competition to the point where they can barely survive. But none can deny the central role that Rupert Murdoch's pay-TV business now plays in the funding, development and perception of top-flight sport in this country.
That relationship was taken a stage further last week when it unveiled Team Sky, a new professional cycling team overseen by British Cycling's performance director, Dave Brailsford, and bankrolled by the broadcaster with the stated aim of winning the Tour de France within five years.
For both sides, the benefits are obvious. Brailsford gets the sizeable investment and exposure required to turn his vision into reality. Sky's chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, gets to tap into the biggest British sporting success story of recent years and further align the Sky brand with its achievements.
"I've been hugely impressed with everyone at British Cycling. Things like the aggregation of small gains [a pet Brailsford theory] have massive relevance to us as a business," says Darroch. "We have tried to create an environment of perpetual improvement. Sport is probably the best example of that." Nor does Team Sky, on top of the company's existing commitment to the Olympic team and initiatives around grassroots cycling, hurt in terms of the company's wider efforts to broaden its appeal and head off intermittent attacks from regulators and politicians.
In 18 years, Sky Sports has gone from a ramshackle collection of studios broadcasting German football and speedway to a huge powerhouse. It has been one of the defining factors in transforming BSkyB from a close-to-bankrupt, down-at-heel brand to the UK's most powerful commercial media company. Through the window of Darroch's office at its HQ on the outskirts of west London, the latest physical manifestation of its dominance is looming in the shape of a new Sky Sports studio complex.
For all that it has become part of the landscape, there remain plenty of critics who bemoan the effect of Sky's money on sport. Darroch, a genial Northumbrian who doesn't fit the bruising Sky stereotype and as such personifies attempts over recent years to soften its image, points in response to the loyalty of Sky Sports subscribers and the affection they have for its output. A long-suffering Newcastle supporter like the long-standing Sky Sports chief, Vic Wakeling, he is unsurprisingly of the view that the Sky billions have done nothing but good for football, cricket, rugby, golf and the other sports that have benefited.
Undoubtedly, the balance of opinion has shifted. Some of those who once castigated it for ruining football now marvel at the fact you can choose from eight Champions League matches on a Wednesday night. Most probably place themselves in the middle, worrying about the power that Sky wields while at the same time appreciating the vast choice of live sport from around the world now open to them. If it was once Millwall, it's now Manchester United.
It is becoming difficult to recall sport in a pre-Sky age, when there were just 14 top-flight live football matches a season. A whole generation has known nothing else and for many their connection with live sport is exclusively through their television set. In 1990 the BBC and ITV paid £3.2m a year. The latest deal, for 138 live matches per season from 2010, is worth £594m a season to the Premier League.
The outcome of the auction, with Sky winning the rights to 115 matches a year for £1.62bn and restricting Setanta to 23, had serious implications for its Irish rival. It has been forced to completely re-evaluate its business plan in an effort to prove to its backers that it has a future and is looking to renegotiate its rights contracts in a last-ditch effort to plot a way forward.
Setanta has criticised the auction process, with one of its biggest shareholders claiming: "Sky's market dominance has allowed it to bid a predatory price for football rights – a price based not on economics, but on its desire to damage its competition." But Sky insists Setanta misjudged its bid and is now crying over spilt milk. "It was the same auction process as two years ago and I didn't hear them complaining when they won two packages then," says Darroch. "They rolled the dice and got it wrong."
Of all of Sky's sports deals, none has been more controversial than the England and Wales Cricket Board's decision to sell it exclusive live rights to domestic Tests. This summer will mark the first Ashes series played on home soil that will not be available on terrestrial television. Darroch believes, perhaps optimistically, that the naysayers have been convinced by the quality of Sky's coverage.
"It's a bit of a misnomer to say the terrestrials supported cricket. During the opening Ashes Test in 2005, Channel 4 cut away to the racing something like 16 times." Nor does he buy the argument that by exiling live coverage to pay TV do governing bodies risk diminishing mass appeal or miss out on the next generation of fans. Like the ECB, he points to figures showing that attendances and participation are both up since 2005.
The row over cricket coverage will shortly move back centre stage as Darroch and Sky's policy people go into bat over the review of listed events being conducted for the government by the former FA director David Davies. The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, is minded to expand it, potentially to include Twenty20 cricket, but Sky will campaign for a complete abolition. "It should be for the rights holder to decide," insists Darroch.
"All the big sports we've got behind in terms of having the broadcast rights are doing well in terms of attendances. Premier League attendances have never been higher, cricket attendances have never been higher, rugby attendances have been up every year since we've had the rights," he says. "That proves tangibly that this idea that if you're on a pay platform you lose visibility just isn't correct. What you see is that people who are interested in those sports see the value in subscribing and that as a consequence the sports can find new ways to improve and develop interest in their sports."
Sky Sports is now in around 6m homes and 40,000 pubs and clubs and Darroch points to the innovations it has introduced, from interactive Champions League to HD coverage, as evidence of the way in which sport has driven technological improvements. He is especially keen to highlight Sky's commitment to minority sport – "everything from archery to badminton, equestrian, darts or angling" – and women's sport, chiming with two themes that Burnham has been vocal about of late. And, just as the Premier League points to its own grassroots investment to deflect criticism, he points to schemes such as Sky Sports Living For Sport: "We use sport for kids who might be having trouble in school or social problems. The individual stories are some of the things I'm proudest of in our business."
The unrelenting positivity, some would say unquestioning hype, that characterises Sky's coverage is reflected in Darroch's view of the sporting world. He has no time, he says, for those who say Sky's money has had a corrosive effect. "I think you have to stand back and look at it in the round. If you cast your mind back to where we were, on any benchmark we are miles and miles ahead. Would you really want to go back to standing on the Gallowgate with no seats, getting soaked because there was no roof? I don't think so."
